ARMENIAN-TURKISH DIALOGUE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC: WHAT COULD BE THE OUTCOME OF THE SARGSYAN-ERDOGAN MEETING?

Today
April 8 2010
Azerbaijan

Voltaire used to say: "If God did not exist, then he would have been
invented." Some politicians act exactly the same way. If there is
no "diplomatic victory," then it should be invented, for example,
by describing everything as a "stunning success."

This comes to mind whenever not only Armenian, but also other
analysts claim that President Serzh Sargsyan’s invitation to the
"nuclear summit" in the United States is a "great diplomatic victory
for Armenia." They also say that the Erdogan-Sargsyan meeting
should be arranged far from Baku, both literally and figuratively,
so Azerbaijan "will not interfere with" its objections and protests
in the advancement of the Armenian-Turkish dialogue. And they talk
about this upcoming meeting as a fait accompli.

The funny thing is that these analysts miss the main point. There
is no strong need for Armenia’s presence in the global summit on
nuclear security, even despite the presence of the Metsamor Nuclear
Power Plant. It is hard to imagine that Sargsyan’s presence is a
prerequisite for fruitful discussions on the Iran issue.

It only makes sense to discuss placing an end to the smuggling of
detonators on civilian flights from Tehran-Yerevan-Beirut as this tiny
and impoverished Armenia shares a 42-kilometer-long border with Iran.
This issue may be discussed and solved at the ambassadorial level,
who will convey U.S. concerns to Yerevan.

Only extremely naive people believe that once Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
far from Baku, he will immediately forget about Azerbaijan. Wherever
Sargsyan meets Erdogan, if even in Australia, if even on the island
of South Georgia, if even on board a Russian icebreaker near the
North Pole, Erdogan will ultimately return to Ankara and have to
answer the questions of his fellow citizens, And 98 percent of them
are against opening the Armenian-Turkish border until the Karabakh
conflict is settled.

And the Turkish PM is unlikely to forget about Azerbaijan’s existence
in general, as well as opinion polls and ambitious oil projects.
Erdogan emphasizes in almost all his interviews that the border
will not reopen until Armenia withdraws its troops from occupied
Azerbaijani lands.

Washington does not want to ignore Azerbaijan for the sake of Armenian
interests either. U.S. officials constantly stress the "strategic
partnership" between the two countries. You also don’t have to be
a sophisticated analyst to see that the very clear statements from
Yerevan that it will not agree to form a joint committee of historians
to investigate Armenia’s historical and territorial claims are a
serious obstacle to developing bilateral ties.

Finally, it is no secret that, from the outset, Washington saw the
Armenian-Turkish negotiations as a measure to protect oil and gas
communications coming from the Caspian to Europe. And if a forced
Armenia-Turkey rapprochement would lead Azerbaijan to switch to other
transit routes, then would it really be worth pushing for a dialogue
"at any price?" Furthermore, the United States and Turkey are engaged
in serious talks on Iran, where the positions of the two countries do
not coincide. The same goes for the Middle East. On this backdrop,
it would silly to risk one’s relations with Ankara for the sake
of Armenia.

It turns out that Sargsyan was invited to the summit not to discuss
reviving political declarations of World War I, but rather to strongly
advise him to take a more constructive attitude toward the Madrid
principles, as opposed to trying to push new initiatives such as an
agreement on the nonuse of force.

However, Armenia has one more trump card in store, as claimed by many
Armenians and pro-Armenian journalists. According to these individuals,
the balance of forces in the region will change radically after
April 24 after U.S. President Barack Obama utters the word "genocide"
as he promised during his election campaign.

However, a year ago, in his traditional appeal to ethnic Armenian
Americans, Obama did not use the word "genocide." The Armenians were
strongly offended, and even demanded that he lose his Nobel Prize.
This year, it seems they will be let down yet again.